Norms

“Norms” is an installation: a rectangle of floor cordoned off with the stanchions and red belts of museum and airport queues. The belts leave a gap on two opposite sides, each marked only by a NO ENTRY sign. Nothing happens inside; the closure is never explained. Whoever reaches a gap must decide: obey the sign and go around, or cut straight through. Visitors watch one another choose; each decision weighs on the next. As Michel Foucault argued, modern power works less through prohibition than through the quiet partitioning of space and the “power of the Norm,” until anyone who may be watched becomes their own guard. The gaps stay open because power exists only over people who could act otherwise. There is nothing to look at, only a decision with no right answer. Norms are renewed by each of us, one small act of obedience at a time. The sign gives an order; the work does not. It offers a moment, just long enough to notice that the one deciding is you.